TipsForSuccess: How to Laugh about Anything

How to Laugh about Anything If you cannot laugh, you are in trouble. Life is not fun for you. You take things too seriously and build stress. If you cannot laugh, you set a negative example for others. People tend to dislike you. No one wants to help you get ahead. If you cannot laugh, you may not sleep well. You need drugs or alcohol to feel good. You have health problems. Fortunately, everyone can laugh under any circumstances. Benefits of Laughter * Laughter strengthens the Immune System. According to Dr. Lee S. Berk from Loma Linda University, California, USA, laughter improves the quality of your blood. * Laughter stimulates your circulation. Per Dr. William Fry of Stanford University, one minute of laughter is equal to 10 minutes on the rowing machine. * Laughing massages your internal organs. It enhances your organ efficiency, especially with intestines. Experiments also show your blood pressure decreases after 10 minutes of laughter. * Laughter increases the levels of the natural painkiller called endorphin. In Norman Cousins' book "Anatomy of an Illness," he explains how laughter relieved the intense pain of his spinal disease when no other painkiller would help him. * Younger appearance. Laughter exercises your facial muscles. When you laugh, your face becomes brighter because your blood supply increases. Laughing people look more attractive. How to Laugh An effective method to find joy and laughter in life is to make your problems seem MORE serious! "The mechanism* is to make it more and more and more serious until it becomes utterly and completely ridiculous and the person will explode the whole thing off in laughter." -- L. Ron Hubbard (*mechanism: system or process) You exaggerate your troubles or expand your complaints to such hilarious levels that you and others end up laughing. Comics get laughs when they make things extra serious. Remember Saturday Night Live television shows where John Belushi would get so upset that he would turn red, scream with anger and flop back and forth until he fell off his chair? He was so overly serious, the audience would howl with laugher. You can use the same method to make serious people start laughing. For example, you go into a bank to cash a check. The bank teller looks at you suspiciously and says, "May I see two forms of identification please?" You say, "Sure. Here's my driver's license and my credit card." The bank teller clerk examines your cards without comment. She seems unhappy. So you pull out more cards and say, "And here's Star Trek Fan Club card and my Yo-Yo Association card." The teller tries to stay serious, but has to laugh. As another example, a serious waitress brings your food and says, "Be careful. The plate is very hot." So you touch the plate, jerk your hand and yell, "OUCH!" The waitress realizes you are exaggerating and laughs. Make Personal Problems So Serious That You Laugh If you are feeling sorry for yourself, write or say to yourself, "Oh, oh, oh! Woe is me! I suffer so much. POOR MEEEE!!! My life is a complete mess! I'm devastated! I will never be happy ever!" If you don't start laughing, make yourself sob, even cry. Be as serious as possible until you feel ridiculous. If you aren't laughing, bawl as loud as you can. If you feel depressed, act it out. Make your frown as ugly as possible. Curl up on your bed and act more depressed than ever. When you feel afraid of something, exaggerate that fear. Make your body tremble and look terrified! Scream, wave your hands and hide in a closet. If you feel stressed, act EXTREMELY stressed out. Pretend to have a heart attack. Fall on the floor. Give an Academy Award performance. If someone gives you some alarming news, grab your collar and pretend to hang yourself. Pretend the world has come to an end until you both laugh. If you are a manager or parent, do this with serious employees and serious kids to get them to lighten up. "Man, if sane, is a child of laughter." -- L. Ron Hubbard Copyright © 2006 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. Take better control of your life with the TipsForSuccess coaching website at www.TipsForSuccessCoaching.org. For permission to copy, print or post this article, go to www.tipsforsuccess.org/reprint_info.htm or click here. To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.

TipsForSuccess: An Interesting Article

An Interesting Article Everyone is looking for happiness. But most people make the mistake of thinking their happiness comes from other sources. "I would be really happy if someone would give me a new house." "If my husband would come home on time, I'd be happy." "As soon as the weather warms up, I'll be happy." Fortunately, as we have covered in several TipsForSuccess articles, you can make yourself happy. Here is a very interesting fact about happiness: "The clue to happiness is being interested in life." -- L. Ron Hubbard For example, why does a sunny day make you happy? Maybe because you become interested in the outdoors? Because you can participate in interesting activities? Do you feel happy when you're around your spouse or a friend? Are you also interested in what he or she has to say? Perhaps you do interesting things with this person? What makes you happy about a new house? Is it interesting to be there and to live there? If you look at things that make you happy, you will also find something that gets you interested in life. Exercises for Increasing Your Interest 1. Look around your desk and find five interesting items. Take a minute to enjoy each of them. 2. Think about your spouse and family. Write down three or more things about your spouse and family that you find interesting. 3. Think about your job. Write down three things that are interesting about your work. 4. What were three interesting things you did yesterday? 5. What are three interesting things you will do today? 6. What are your three most interesting problems? Write them down. What is interesting about them? Answer any of these questions until you feel happy. Go enjoy them! Helping Others Be Happy Now that you know the clue to happiness, you can use it to make others happy as well. Here are some ideas. 1. When children are upset or unhappy, find something in life which brings out their interest. For example, a small girl falls and scrapes her knee. After you clean her up, she is still crying. So you say, "Do you like this picture of a kitten?" "Where's your doll?" "Will you help me make a snack?" 2. Your friend is depressed because he lost his girlfriend Sheila. How could you get him interested in life? "Let's take a walk." "Have you seen this new web site?" "Before you met Sheila, who was the most interesting person you ever dated?" 3. As the boss of several employees, you know happy employees mean higher productivity. So how can you get them more interested in their work? "We're starting a new production game. If everyone reaches their quota for the week, everyone gets two movie tickets!" "I want to read you a couple of letters we received from some customers." "I'm passing out our new goals for the company; as you will see, everyone has a place in the future of this company." 4. You want people to be happy when they talk to you. How can you find what interests them? "What is your favorite food?" "What's the most interesting vacation you have ever taken?" "What was the last book/play/concert/movie you really enjoyed?" 5. You want to sell something. "What interests you about this new Volvo?" "Are you interested in buying this house because it has a mature garden or a big kitchen; or because it's near some excellent schools or the new shopping mall?" "Which benefits do you like the most about this new computer system?" Copyright © 2006 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. Take better control of your life with the TipsForSuccess coaching website at www.TipsForSuccessCoaching.org. For permission to copy, print or post this article, go to www.tipsforsuccess.org/reprint_info.htm or click here. To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.

TipsForSuccess: More Control, Less Stress

More Control, Less Stress On your road to success, you can sometimes feel overwhelmed and out of control. For example, you are not making enough money to pay your bills. Maybe your work is not going very well. You feel desperate, even a tiny feeling of terror. You cannot relax. As another example, you want to succeed as a parent. You want your children to grow up to be happy, healthy and valuable to society. But your kids won't talk to you. Your son is failing in school and your daughter is dating a gangster. You feel angry or confused. When your work is stressful, you are not in control of something. Certain people push you around. You have doubts about your past business decisions. You worry about disasters. So instead of continuing to be overwhelmed, you can make one simple change to turn things around. "A WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR CONTROL OR ANOTHER'S IS TO DO IT ON A GRADIENT*." -- L. Ron Hubbard (gradient: a series of steps that gradually increase in size or difficulty) Instead of trying to control the entire problem, you select one small part of the problem and take control of it. For example, if you wish to fly an airplane, you do not sit in the cockpit, start the engine and head down the runway. You would lose control. Instead, you watch someone else fly the plane. You flip one switch for the pilot. You use a simulator. You control small pieces and then larger pieces of the plane. You eventually control the airplane and can fly it. Any difficulty you face can be controlled, if you use gradient steps. Bullies You can increase your control of difficult people. For example, let's say your office manager is a bully. He likes to criticize you. He blows up at the strangest times. He screams at anyone who crosses him. You are afraid to confront him. So to take control of this bully, you control one small thing. "Excuse me Joe, will you hand me the Peterson file? Thanks." Perhaps you control a few other small things, such as controlling his hand by handing him a pen. "Here's your pen Joe." Later, you control a slightly larger thing. "Joe, can we talk about this in five minutes? Thanks." You are increasing the gradient of difficulty. "If you don't mind, can we talk about the Petersons now? Great." Next, you control one of the office manager's angry outbursts. Joe says, "You stupid idiot! How many times do I need to tell you to call John Peterson?" You say, "Do you want me to be afraid of you or tell you the news about John Peterson?" Joe calms down. You may not control Joe every time you try, but you soon control him more often than you do not control him. Everyone in the office admires how you can handle Joe, including Joe. You are taking control of him on a gradual, gradient basis. Tough Projects You cannot actually do a project. You can only do one action step within that project. If you do enough action steps, you finish the project. If you feel frustrated because you cannot reach a goal or finish a project, you need to look at the smaller picture. You must focus on one single step you can control now. Let's say you want to double your income. You write down, "Goal: Double My Income." You then clench your fists and say, "I'm going to get out there now and make more money!" But then you feel overwhelmed. Your gradient is too steep. Instead, you pick one step of the project and control it. For example, you decide that to increase your income, you will need to provide a more valuable service to your customers. But that is too big of a step. You realize you had better find out what your customers want. You need to conduct some surveys. You can control this part. During the day you ask 10 customers, "What can we do to give you better service?" Six customers want the same improvement. You can then take a gradient step to make the improvement. You could do the same thing as an employee and ask your boss, "I want to do a better job for you. What can I do?" You pick one small step and take control of it. You might control your body and work a little harder. Perhaps you control your time and spend an hour learning something new. You might take control of your spending. Just as you can climb the biggest mountain in the world, you can reach your biggest goals in life. You just take control of one step at a time. Recommendations 1. Write down three difficulties in your life. 2. For each difficulty, figure out one part that you can control. 3. Go control each. 4. Repeat. TipsForSuccessCoaching.org Website You can take even greater control of your life, your future and your success by using the free TipsForSuccess Coaching interactive website. Go to www.tipsforsuccesscoaching.org and give it a try! Copyright © 2006 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. Take better control of your life with the TipsForSuccess coaching website at www.TipsForSuccessCoaching.org. For permission to copy, print or post this article, go to www.tipsforsuccess.org/reprint_info.htm or click here. To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.